


Come With Me If You Want To Live

by EclipseAtDawn



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: F/M, Original Character(s), Post-Apotheosis (The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals), Post-Canon, basically my sequel to tgwdlm, lots of swearing, more tags will be added as story progresses, vomit tw, will have flashbacks to emma and paul later, will kinda be a song fic later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:47:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22779703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EclipseAtDawn/pseuds/EclipseAtDawn
Summary: It’s been months since the initial outbreak in Hatchetfield, but what happens when it reaches the rest of the world? The Hive has leading roles it needs filled, and it knows just who to send to seek them out.
Relationships: OC/OC, Paul Matthews/Emma Perkins
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	1. La De Dah Dah Day

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! Thanks for checking this out! Just an FYI this is my first ever published fic, so I'm pretty new to this whole thing. This story is basically my idea for a sequel to TGWDLM, and what happens when the apotheosis spreads beyond Hatchetfield. It will feature two OCs in leading roles but returning characters will play a huge part as well. This will kinda be a songfic later due to having run ins with the infected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! Thanks for checking this out! Just an FYI this is my first ever published fic, so I'm pretty new to this whole thing. This story is basically my idea for a sequel to TGWDLM, and what happens when the apotheosis spreads beyond Hatchetfield. It will feature two OCs in leading roles but returning characters will play a huge part as well. This will kinda be a songfic later due to having run ins with the infected.

Annika “Ani” Bennett was about as much of an ordinary girl as you could get. Of course that’s not what she liked to think she was, but it was the truth. She was like white bread. But that’s okay! Bread is good! Ani liked bread! White bread served as an okay enough life for now until she swore she’d get back on her feet and go back to college. She was only working this retail job until she had a better opportunity. She didn’t know what that opportunity would be yet, but it had to come someday, right? If you asked her what she wanted she would probably say she wanted to be a writer. But honestly she didn’t know what she truly wanted.

If you asked her this morning she would say what she wanted was to not go to work.

She woke up for her morning shift and kept lying down in bed until the last possible second. She put on her boring work mandated outfit of a plain black shirt and jeans. Normally she would love this outfit but the fact that she had to wear it every damn day just ruined it for her after about the first two weeks at the job. She grabbed her coat and her purse and headed out the door. She went to swing by the coffee shop next to her house before she went in for her morning shift. As she pulled up to the shop there were several coffee cups littered on the ground outside. The liquid coming out almost looked…. Blue tinted? Surely that was just a trick of the light.

The drive thru was several cars long. Ani eyed it for a moment to see if the line was moving but it was almost as if nobody was attending the drive thru at all. What could they be so busy doing? She knew she didn’t have enough time to go inside and get it herself. Great. Opening at work with no coffee. It was going to be a long day.

On her drive in, traffic came to a full stop. Ani had to slam on the brakes and slightly swerve into the median to avoid crashing into the car in front of her. Several people began leaving their cars. Ani thought there might be a big accident and people were checking to see what was going on. She rolled down her window and tried to get the attention of someone walking around to see what was going on, but everyone just ignored her. Then people began to move so fluidly that it was like they were…… dancing? 

Wha…….What? What the fuck?

She could hear what sounded like someone singing, at first she thought someone had just left their radio turned up really high. But after they all seemingly pointed at her, she realized it was the crowd that was singing.

Was she still asleep? What the fuck was this? This whole thing almost looked like that opening scene from La La Land. Ani didn’t care for La La Land.

What the hell was she even supposed to do in this situation? She wasn’t the best driver but even she knew there were probably no laws for what to do if a musical brings traffic to a stop. She did the only thing she could even think to do and did something totally illegal while everyone seemed too busy to notice and drove across the median to turn around and take the backroads into work where there would be no traffic. She thought about that incident the entire twenty minute drive.

When Ani arrived at work she got out of the car and started walking in just like any other day, trying to put the random musical number on the back burner of her mind. But there was still a buzz around her, a hum in the air, surely it was just all in her head. After she got inside she saw that the mall was just absolutely crawling with mall walkers today. Why were so many people out on this random Tuesday morning? First the coffee shop, then traffic, now this?

She started unlocking the store’s gate and she saw that Abu was opening this morning at the store across the hall, she waved, he waved back. They were on nice terms, her and Abu, always showing the other new merchandise they got, offering exclusive sales to the other, grabbing food for each other when they knew they had a long day. It was nice, but Ani  _ wanted _ it to be more than nice.

He was wearing his usual, white t-shirt under a big gray cardigan and jeans. Despite working in a shoe store he always wore slipper-like shoes. At least he got to be comfortable at work. He walked over to her with two canned energy drinks in hand. 

“Did you get coffee this morning?” He asked.

“Ugh, don’t remind me. The line was way too long at the one next to my house and the one here doesn’t open until after my shift starts.” She rolled her eyes. He handed her one of the drinks. “Thanks.” She smiled. He smiled back.

“Not a problem. I couldn’t get any either so I got these from the vending machine. Gotta have your caffeine if you’re opening, right?”

“Hey, did you see anything weird on your drive in today?” Ani asked. She still hadn’t been able to get that dancing image out of her head.

Abu thought for a second. “There were a lot of people walking around and talking to each other downtown with no coats on. Normally that wouldn’t be worth noting but it’s Minnesota in January so I have no idea what they were up to. Why do you ask?”

“I saw the weirdest thing on the highway earlier. Traffic was completely stopped and everyone was out of their cars. At first I thought maybe there was a huge accident but then everyone started moving exactly the same, like they were dancing? And they were singing. In the middle of rush hour traffic. Like…. Have you ever seen La La Land?”

“I hated that movie.” Abu replied in an unamused tone.

“It was like the opening scene from that. Except in real life.”

“Like a flash mob?”

“Yeah!”

“Did you get a video of it?”

Ani cursed herself in her head before responding “..... No but damn it why didn’t I think of that?!”

“That’s why you need your caffeine.” Abu smiled as he pushed himself off the wall he had been leaning against. “I gotta finish opening but you drink your caffeine and stop thinking about La La Land okay?”

“Okay.” Ani laughed as he walked back to his store.

\-----------------

About an hour into her shift Ani heard an increasingly loud group of singers down the hall. The mall did host choirs from time to time so she peeked her head out of the store to see what was going on, and saw Abu doing the same. She saw that it was more than just a choir. It seemed as if all the people in the mall from the beginning of the day were now twirling down the halls, joining in on the song. They were taking other people’s hands and encouraging them to join in. The song was something about a typical day? This day had been anything but typical so far, what the hell was up with people today? Were these the same people from the traffic earlier?

Abu had started to get uncomfortable when a couple of the singers wouldn’t leave him alone, and tried to cross the hall over to Ani’s store. Keyword being “tried”, there were so many of them that he couldn’t make it through very easily. Three of the singers had made their way into Ani’s store, circling around her, trying to get her to follow them.

“Hey guys, what can I do for you?” Ani asked, trying to bring some normalcy into the situation.

But they didn’t respond to her question. They only kept singing, “ _ La De Dah Dah Day _ ” over and over again. They had started grabbing her hands and pushing her when Abu came in.

“Hey, stop! That’s not cool you can’t just grab her like that.” He stood next to her, Ani grabbed his arm gently to let him know she was there.

_ “Do you wanna save the planet?”  _ they stopped circling and sang more menacingly.

Ani tried to maintain her cool. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave or I’ll call security.” Her voice was definitely wavering.

One of them snuck up behind Abu and pinned his arm against his back.

_ “Of course you want to save the planet” _ They pushed him against a wall.

_ “Do you want to save the planet?” _ One of them sung to Ani as they pushed her against the counter with their elbow. She couldn’t see Abu anymore, only the person pinning her down, who was smiling just a little too wide.

_ “Well there’s just one way you can do it.” _ She looked into their eyes. They were glowing blue. Oh god they were glowing. What the fuck? Holy shit, what the fuck?!?!?

_ “By singingggg a songg.” _ It opened its mouth. Oh fuck what was it doing? Was it going to eat her?! Ani cried out and turned her face away. She could hear Abu struggling too.

She closed her eyes, she had never been so afraid. She heard grunts from where Abu was. One grunt that didn’t sound like him. Maybe he had pushed them off? She suddenly felt that the weight that had been pushing her down was lifted and she felt splatter on her face. She opened her eyes to see a woman with a baseball bat filled with nails covered in some type of blue shit. Ani looked down and saw everyone from the singing group on the floor, dead. With blue leaking everywhere from their bodies. Abu ran over to Ani. 

“Are you okay?!”She managed to nod, not being able to speak. He was holding one of his shoulders, it had probably been dislocated when pinned behind him.

“We need to close that gate!” The woman shouted. She was wearing a white tank top with high waisted camo pants that had plenty of pockets and combat boots. She had on fingerless gloves that failed to cover her bruised knuckles. Her hair was up with frays coming out all over. She almost looked like a video game character.

Ani started coming out of her shock. She grabbed the keys from her pocket and started heading towards the front of the store. She put her key in the lock and turned to release the gate and lock anyone else out of the store.

“Is there any other way inside?” The woman asked with urgency.

Ani shook her head “No but there is a back door that leads to the services hallways. There’s no handle on the other side and it’s always locked so no one can get in that way.”

“Okay, let’s go if we hurry we can get out before they realize what happened and block the exits.” The woman said, already turning towards the exit.

“Hold up! You think we’re going anywhere with you?”Abu stepped in front of Ani “We were just attacked, we could have died! You just killed these people!!! We don’t even know your name. Why would we go anywhere with you?”

The woman turned back. “My name is Emma Perkins.” She held out her hand. “Come with me if you want to live.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, I really appreciate it! I hope you enjoy following these new characters and are excited for what's to come, I know I am! I don't know how often this will update, but I'm hoping maybe once every two weeks or so.
> 
> Also yes Emma is supposed to be dressed like Taz from Starship.
> 
> Check me out on Tumblr! My main blog is eclipseatdawn and my starkid blog is graceschasity.


	2. Monsters and Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma tries to get Ani and Abu out of the mall, and has a bit of explaining to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I didn't actually give up on this after one chapter? I even surprised myself.
> 
> I'm sorry if this chapter is all over the place, I had a really hard time writing it and it changed direction a few times, I still hope you enjoy it though! Vomit warning for this chapter btw.

“Give me one damn reason why I shouldn’t call the cops on you.” Ani had never seen Abu so heated, so protective. If they hadn’t just almost died she’d be super into it.

“Um, maybe because I just saved your fucking lives?!” The woman, Emma, said.

“You gotta be crazy if you think we’re going with you without an explanation.” Abu said. To be fair to him, he did have an extremely valid point. But to be fair to Emma, so did she.

Ani had to step in. “Okay, I think we need to take a second to talk about what the fuck just happened! Why are you here?! Why were they trying to kill us?! Why are they leaking blue?! And why the FUCK were they SINGING the whole time?!?!?” Oh god, she was about to have a mental breakdown. Wait, not about to, she was, she was having a mental breakdown.

Emma just took a deep breath and sighed. “Look, I promise I’ll explain everything. But we have to get out of here, it’s not safe.”

“Where are we even gonna go? The whole mall was crawling with those people.” Abu pointed out.

“Those weren’t people.” Emma said matter-of-factly.

“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN??” Ani shouted.

“Oh, god okay um....” Emma looked at her name tag. “Annika, you need to stop freaking out, okay? If you’re too loud it’ll draw attention to us and that’s the last thing any of us want.” Emma tried to calm her down.

Instead Ani’s eyes were still fixated on the floor, staring at the gory scene that should definitely not be that color. She could vaguely hear Abu and Emma arguing in the background, but she wasn’t listening. All she could hear is her own heart beating, her blood running cold, her vision blurring, a lump growing from the pit of her stomach into her throat.

Oh god.

Ani pushed past Emma and ran into the employee bathroom. She emptied out the very little contents of her stomach into the toilet. Abu and Emma followed her back there, Emma immediately ran up to check the bowl.

“It’s not blue. Thank fuck.” Just…. Why would she say that? What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

Ani sat her back against the wall and took a deep, shaky breath. “Okay, I am not getting off this floor until I get an explanation from you. You want us to go with you so bad? Then start talking.” Maybe she was being a little harsh to the woman who had just saved their lives, but she felt like she was being fair to herself.

“God damn it, okay, I know this is gonna sound like a bunch of bullshit but do you remember like eight months ago when that town, Hatchetfield, got wiped off the map by a meteor? It was all over the national news.”

“Yeah but what does that have to do with….. Whatever the hell this is?” Abu asked.

“I’m getting to that.” Emma snapped at him. “It carried a weird type of alien….. Disease? I still don’t even know what to call it. Anyways, it takes over the human host, changing them into this alien that’s a part of a greater hive mind. For whatever reason it’s goal is to turn the world into a fucking musical. And I know that sounds ridiculous, but think about it! Yeah, maybe you can credit the singing from earlier to a flash mob. But why would they try to kill you in plain sight? Why else would they bleed blue?!”

Emma gave them a moment to think about it.

“I am one of the-'' She caught herself. “I am the only survivor of the Hatchetfield apotheosis. That’s why I know so much. And that’s why you need to trust me.”

Maybe this woman was telling the truth, maybe she was crazy. But no matter which was correct, there was still the fact that there were corpses in the other room bleeding out blue. Ani and Abu shared a look. Neither of them could possibly know what to do in this situation, so they had no choice but to trust her.

“Before we go anywhere, we need to arm ourselves.” Ani said as she was getting off the ground. “You may have that killer bat but we need more assurance that we can make it out of the building alive. There isn’t much here, but we’ve got basic shit like box cutters and scissors. I also have two pocket knives and pepper spray in my purse.”

“Why do you have two pocket knives? Is one not good enough?” Abu asked, seeming more surprised by that than he should given their current predicament.

“I’m a paranoid bitch and right now you’re lucky I’m a paranoid bitch because it means you also get a knife.” Ani answered, digging into her bag and handing him a knife.

“Well you can get rid of the pepper spray, it won’t work on the infected.” Emma said. “Anything sharp is good to have for obvious reasons but another reason is that if you don’t know if someone is infected you can cut them and see if they bleed red or blue, and that can literally save your life. If there is any sealed food in here, throw it into a bag, you do not want to eat or drink anything that is unsealed because it could infect you.”

“Where are we even gonna go? I mean, I’m all for getting the hell out of here, but we can’t just run around outside.” Abu asked.

“I have someone waiting for us outside, all we need to do is get to him.” Emma answered.

“Wait, shouldn’t we see if we can find any more people? I mean, not every person in the mall this morning could have been infected, shouldn’t we try to save them?” Ani did not want to stay in the mall and risk running into more of those things, but a lot of people worked in this mall, surely there had to be more like her and Abu that needed help.

“It’s too dangerous, we have to leave as soon as we possibly can.” Emma could see Ani was not satisfied with that answer. “Look, I said I'll explain everything, and I will. But we need to get out of here first.”

They spent a few minutes gathering supplies, mostly random all the pre packaged snack food from the break room or anything sharp or anything with a hefty weight to it. Ani grabbed her coat. Abu claimed he was fine in his large sweater, but she made him put on another layer, helping him put it on with his bad shoulder. They had stolen a coat for Emma, who had been wearing only a tank top, reminding her that its really fucking cold outside. Ani unlocked the service entrance door, Emma exited first, slowly, then motioned for them to follow. They followed the exit signs, Ani almost thought they were home free until Emma suddenly backed up instead of rounding the corner. She held up one finger to signal there was one person, wait no, those things weren’t people, one non person standing in front of the exit.

Emma pulled something small from her bag and threw it down the other end of the hall. She waited, then as the non person approached she surprised it by knocking its head in with her bat. All three of them bolted for the exit.

As they walked through the parking lot they approached a large windowless black van. Ani was suddenly questioning every decision she made to trust this woman. She fell back a bit, just in case she needed to run. Abu seemed to notice and followed her lead.

A dark skinned man got out of the vehicle. He was wearing sunglasses and looked more like he should be riding a motorcycle than driving a van. Emma stopped about ten feet away, and Ani and Abu followed in suit. The man took off the sunglasses to reveal brown eyes underneath. Emma let out a sigh of relief.

“Let me introduce you to Xander Lee. Field agent of PEIP.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! Honestly I only decided to add Xander like a week ago but he's exactly what I needed to get this fic going in the right direction. This chapter was originally going to end with Paul but as I struggled I decided we weren't ready to meet him yet. I'm hoping to at least show him a little bit next chapter if not full on encounter him. I know I have the Paul character tag and paulkins tag on this fic, I promise it's not a lie! We will eventually get there!
> 
> Check me out on Tumblr! My main blog is eclipseatdawn and my starkid blog is graceschasity!


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